


those weak and drunken hearts

by theviolonist



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: F/M, Het
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-31
Updated: 2012-05-31
Packaged: 2017-11-06 10:16:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,758
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/417710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theviolonist/pseuds/theviolonist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"They want 'Harry + 1' to go," he says, holding the paper up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	those weak and drunken hearts

**Author's Note:**

> This must be getting a little repetitive, but I don't know how that happened? Just, I love Harry/Caroline, and I heard this interview the other day where Harry was maybe implying that he and Caroline were still friends with benefits? It's really how I see their relationship, I guess. Also, not familiar with a) straight couples and b) smut in general, much less straight, so bear with me. Oh, and Larry seems to worm itself in everything I write, so.  
> Title from Cherry Ghost's People help the people

They don't really work together. 

It's nothing new, though – he kind of knew that from the start, but he doesn't care. He always does the wrong things, and he's fine with that. _It's a way of life_ , he tells Zayn, and Zayn laughs at him. Harry pouts. 

The point is, they don't work together. It was a bad idea to begin with, kissing her full on the lips at a party where there were cameras and there was going to be talk of it after, where he was going to be asked about it in interviews, pasted on the cover of newspapers because they were getting kind of famous and everything was going to be extraordinarily awkward. Any other girl would have put a hand on his chest, over his too-fast beating heart, and said, "Let's not," or "We can't," or even "Sorry." 

Not her. She nipped playfully at Harry's bottom lip, anchored her arms around his narrow waist, and said "Let's get out of here," or maybe "Good," or even "Okay." Harry can't really remember, to be honest. He does remember Louis, though, looking at him from the other side of the room, eyes shining, half-interested and half-concerned (jealous?). Harry thought, _screw it all_. 

The idea didn't get better with time. They got such incredible shit for it, Caroline with the death threats and the age gap and the awkward interviews and Louis taking the piss out of him every time someone asked him about it, and him just not caring and saying stupid things like "We'll see where it goes," and getting scolded by management. 

"Still not a good idea, then," Caroline said when they could finally catch a moment alone again between all the crazy speculation, bending down so their lips were grazing. 

Harry smiled, "Still not," and kissed her. 

They were never good together. Maybe the outrage brought them together, pushed that they were towards each other so they could be accused and dissected; maybe it was something else, the long, golden nights and the fun sex and the wine. They aren't the type to ask questions. They dove head first. 

She really should've known better. She's older, more experienced, and she's had more sex and her heart broken before in a place that wasn't the schoolyard. And she doesn't love him. He's just Harry Styles, a hot teenager from the X-factor with a deep voice that makes her wet when he whispers filthy things in her ear. He's underage, with twenty cameras trained on him at every minute, and he has stupid bandmates that can't keep their mouth shut. 

But for some reason, they don't break up. 

It's not that they even _like_ being together, because they don't, not really. There are golden moments that shine on the pads of their fingers and tiger eyes, but they could find them somewhere else too, it wouldn't even be that hard. And they don't understand each other – he's too young to understand anyone, let alone her, and she can't go back to being as reckless as he is, as mindlessly crazy and unconcerned, made dizzy by a whiff of skin and a drop of alcohol. 

Maybe it just seems like too much trouble, after they spent so much time getting teased and accused for it, to just stop. None of them wants to make the first step, be the one to tell a lie that amounts to, "It's not really this" in the end. And they're not really searching. They're not good together, because they're not endgame, and they know it, but in the end they don't really want anything else. They just don't care for true love, so sue them. 

It's like a fraud of a normal relationship. They don't call when they're apart, except when he's on tour and they talk about quiet nothings, and they each have their own conservation that falls empty and noisy like a nickel in the other's ear. They try to imagine each other between two breaths, her sitting in her couch, golden legs folded beneath her, a thirty-two-year-old woman (she's never known how old she is more acutely in her life) with a successful career and a teenage half-boyfriend and he sitting in his bunk, long legs unwrapped before him, cradling a sneaky cigarette between his fingers. 

They almost always end up having phone sex. It's probably the thing they're the most complimentary on, sex – because he's more mature than he should be and she's still young. She can bend and he can devour, and it's all fine for these twenty, thirty, sixty minutes, all fine and dandy with a cherry on top and leather restraints around her wrists. 

Maybe it's what holds them together, but that's another lie, because it's good but it's not the best, just a flavour of smooth and easy and sometimes painful. They're fine with lying. They do have that in common – the buoyant, uncaring bluntness with which they tell their truths as well as their lies, making them impossible to tell apart. They're great magicians. _It's the hands_ , says Caroline when they're lying next to each other, breathing heavy, her breasts moving with her irregular breathing, nipples pink and tender. 

Harry would probably be better with Louis. There's something there, the easy success of falling into his outstretched arms, Louis's skin hot over his ribs, engulfed in the warmth. It's not just pretend for the cameras, even though there's that too, this traditional fraud that everyone chooses to believe. There are also the late nights in their apartment when Louis crawls in his bed, making the sheets rustle like crumpled paper and nuzzles his nose into harry's collarbone, the fact that they even chose to live together, this half-choice that wasn't really a choice as much as it was an evidence, something that they _did_ the way they do everything. 

But maybe that wasn't meant to happen, or maybe they just didn't choose to make it happen, because Harry only half-believes in fate when he's tired and there are little colored spots dancing before his eyes, tiny wildfires trying to lure him to sleep. It's good like that too, _Harry and Louis_ and _Larry stylinson_ instead of the tight unity that would have been _HarryLouis_ or _LouisHarry_. Combining them seems good, half of Harry and half of Louis to form this miracle of a relationship. More would make it hard to tell where one ends and the other begins. Harry is kind of afraid of that, and he knows Louis is too. 

Maybe it's the youth – maybe if they'd met later (in the case that they hadn't passed each other in the street, each heading for somewhere without each other, shopping lists and half-wishes and a rented car and bills all piled up in their head, leaving no space for other hurrying strangers), they would have been able to have that. Harry isn't convinced it would have been better. He often has trouble believing that anything could be better than what he has. It's so much. 

He tries to imagine them, twenty-five verging on thirty, older but probably not wiser, with more laugh lines and less breath. Would it have been easier to fall in love, to make it happen? Probably not. What they have now is good – Harry probably wouldn't know how to deal with love. He barely remembers his own birthday each year, his mother has to remind him. 

He likes women's bodies, anyway. Something in the way their hair flows on their shoulders, the tight material of their dresses, hugging the so many places of them, their eyes that are the only ones capable of taking on this color that isn't really a color, more like a feeling, liquid and dark. He likes twisting his fingers in the cavities of their flesh, make them hiss and moan and writhe – he always watches them with wide eyes, amazed by what he can squeeze out of them so easily, a game of knots and unravelled threads. 

But it could have been someone else than Caroline. The fact that they're together now is at least half chance, the careless jangling of her bracelets against his forearm when she was tipsy on champagne, his eyes hooded and intent on her neck. They're just not good at resisting. They don't see why they should. 

But it's just chance, it is – he could have taken a step in another direction, the ballerina push of his toes against the sole of his shoe, and it would have been another girl, a dark-haired Chinese starlet in glittery high heels with lose limbs and a rosy mouth, and it never would've gone further than the jokes in the interviews and them both distractedly thinking that the other was hot when they should've had something else on their minds. Here they are, though. 

He's not really her boyfriend, because she's too old to have boyfriends, and she's not his girlfriend because he's too young and she doesn't feel like a girlfriend anyway, more like a lover with her spicy skin and saucy innuendos. They go to parties together, and sometimes he slips a lose arm around her waist, his fingers playing piano on her hip like a child that's playing at being a grown-up. But that's what he is, playing. They're both playing. They're okay with that, on a certain level. 

No one really understand them, or why they're together, but they don't understand either, so it's okay. They give a shrug that rolls on their shoulders like a wave and the conversation is over. _It's what it is_ , he says when he leans against her, molding into her curvaceous body, ill-fitting. She smiles at him from light-years away, and when they come home (they don't have a home together – there's home for her and homes for him, his mother's wooden floor and the messiness of his and louis's apartment) they make sweat-tasting love on the couch, the hard edge of the arm burning a rash on her calf. 

There's just no reason to end it. There's no reason to continue, either, but they're lazy and contented and they've grown used to each other, the way their bodies work together and the way they never quite connect. He's learned to tune her out when she talks about things he doesn't understand, when she gets bitter and cynical and old, and she's learned to kick him out of her apartment when he's being childish, buzzing with this exhausting energy that only Louis seems to able to accompany. It would be so much trouble learning that about someone else again. 

Of course they get crazy for novelty from time to time, but they indulge themselves, sometimes together and sometimes on their own. There's nothing standing in the way of their freedom together, no heavy promises weighing them down with iron edges. sometimes he licks vodka and sugar off a girl's lips, and she looks up at him, looking breathtaken; he cradles her cheek in the palm of his hand, peach skin sweet and round against his, and he kisses her. Caroline goes out with men that makes her laugh and fuck her slowly in their bed. For some reason, they always come back to each other. 

(They keep their eyes open when they kiss, and they're never quite gentle but never quite passionate either. It seems like the secret ingredient for some kind of relationship recipe, but it works for them, the gentle simmer of this not-quite-love.)

The newspapers stop making such a fuss out of it after a while. They're both a bit disappointed the first week they don't make a cover (the band's fame is sky-rocketing. Caroline doesn't know if she should be happy – she doesn't really care, to be honest), but they settle into the anonymity as well as they do anything. They would be beggars with elegance. They would be glorious apart. 

There's something quietly exhilarating to be driving this into the wall knowingly, to be two accomplices in this trainwreck. To anyone who objects that they don't know what they're doing, they laugh, and they look at each other with languid eyes, saying _oh but we do_ and _we don't want to be happy_. They don't. They're the same in that respect – they fear that happiness would bore them in less time than it would take to come. It's just not worth-it. 

He lets her collar him from time to time and order him around, and he makes her squirm when they're in a restaurant with a crowd, the heady scent of her arousal filling his nostrils and making him forget about everyone else. They're strangely addicted to this, she thinks as she struggles not to shiver, his fingers burried deep into her under the table. She wonders why. Then he looks up at her, eyes devilish and green, curls flying around his glorious face, and she remembers. 

Eleanor and Louis move in together, but they don't, keep meeting at Caroline's house because it's bigger and she doesn't want to have sex in his bachelor pad and face his neighbors – she has enough of her own, thank you. She complains that she's the one who gets the more shit, that they don't know just how deviant, how cruel he is, and he sucks bruises in her neck in false apology. She wears a lot of scarves. 

He sleeps over and always forgets to bring a change of clothes. He simmers in the same underwear for days, or she doesn't let him put any on, and then they eat chinese take-out with a lot of unnecessary teeth. She wonders what they must look like, sitting cross-legged on her couch, ferocious mouths smeared with grease, eyes shining. Ultimately, she doesn't care. 

Harry gets increasingly more furious as Louis gets safer and tamer. Caroline doesn't care about his complaints, so she straddles his hips and swallows them, dark and swirling. He looks up at her like the petulant child he is, and keeps his eyes open as he lets his pupils turn dark, because he knows she likes to look. She always likes to look. they have a camera stashed in one of Caroline's drawers. They never switch the light off. He gets off on it too, doesn't even pretend to be worried that it'll leak out and that he'll end up having his cougar sex tape. She's sure he would actually be secretly pleased with it. 

He meets her family but she doesn't meet his. He actually meets Jody by chance, because he needs to go to the airport and he doesn't have a car yet, and Jody doesn't mind. She knows how Caroline works, she knows and she just doesn't care. She doesn't care about a lot of things – it must be a family thing. Her parents meet him when they swing by without warning and they him tangled in sheets. She's a bit jealous of how he can look so good at all times, but she had her time when she was seventeen too. He's charming and they're a little cold. Caroline laughs breathlessly when they leave. He gives her a look, drops the sheet, pushes her against the door and fucks her in the afternoon light. 

One morning, he walks into the kitchen, looking strangely out-of-place in this universe of gleaming iron and tender wood, and he says, "Louis and Eleanor are having some sort of fancy dinner-party sort of thing," his lips curled into a sneer. 

She isn't insterested. "Really?"

"They want 'Harry +1' to go," he says, holding the paper up. Caroline would feel insulted, but she's heard so much and Harry's bandmates never liked her anyway. (Sometimes she wonders if he doesn't feel out of place with them, more cynical, more cruel than them, so far from their dreams of bubble-gum success and white picket fences. but maybe she's wrong.)

He looks at her, an eyebrow arched, and they laugh, deep-throated and hoarse. 

Afterwards, as they lay tangled on the kitchen tiles, skin shiny with sweat, she says, "We'll go."

They go to parties together a lot, but it's parties she knows in the heart of London with alcohol and drugs and pretty girls with clinking necklaces. They try to avoid parties with people they know as much as possible. They just want to have fun, and it really shouldn't be so hard, but the judgmental looks got old a long time ago. Harry goes out with his friends from time to time, and she with hers. They don't go to the red-carpet events together unless they can't avoid it – but most of the time it's easy to get out of it, because boyband members usually go in tribe, and she's by herself because she's a grown, liberated woman. They usually gesture more or less discreetly at each other to head to the bathroom, and he presses her against the stall, one hand against her mouth to muffle her moans. 

He doesn't ask her why she wants to go, only shrugs and says, "Okay."

They go. They're wearing matching outfits over unmatched skins, and they say hello to everyone, he with wide lazy smiles and she with her usual buzzing energy. He presses Eleanor against him, their cheeks pressed together – she wonders with almost generic interest if they've fucked at some point. Louis greets her with unreadable eyes. He unsettles her (when she takes the time to think about it, she almost always comes to the conclusion that he's in love with Harry, and it makes her sort of smug for being the one who has him, even if she doesn't, not really). 

His bandmates swarm around him and she makes herself scarce, but he finds her back not long after, plasters himself against her back and rides the shiver with her as he's learned to. She's taught him well, she thinks, which is only half-true. "Having fun?" he whispers in her ear, and she laughs without really knowing why. 

It turns out that the night is set to be more of a dinner than a party, and they find themselves seated and forced to make awkward conversation as Louis watches them, hawk-like. They don't work together, but in moments like that they almost do, brought together by their mutual annoyance. Caroline almost wants to tell Louis that what he's doing has the opposite effect than what he wants. 

She catches Harry's eye next to her. His fingers are dancing on her thigh. They're so extraordinarily _wrong_ , she thinks with something resembling glee. 

They'll never work, he thinks as he leans down to kiss her.

They come home tipsy, stumbling against each other and giggling stupidly, the 'I love you's so far from their mouths that there's no danger of them spilling in a moment of inattention. They fall into a peaceful slumber as soon as their heads hit the pillows. 

He has to wake up obnoxiously early because they leave on tour in a few days and he has to pack, so they probably won't see each other much. She stays in her nightgown and follows him to the kitchen, pressing the sole of her feet against the sun-hot tiles. He says things she doesn't listen to as he rummages through her fridge. She doesn't tell him that there's nothing, because he never believes her, even if it's true. He's actually a very good cook, and she's regularly amazed by what he manages to come up with with so few ingredients. 

She watches the muscles ripple on his back. He's gotten broader, stronger since they met, but he hasn't lost what drew her to him in the first place – his angelic face and his easy flirting, this ability he has to charm anyone out of their pants in ten minutes top. She hops herself on the counter, the wood pleasantly warm under her naked thighs. He turns around at the noise and smirks as he sees her. His eyes turn predatory. He strides forward and sinks to his knees. 

Caroline smiles, spreads her legs and closes her eyes. not bad for a farewell, she thinks distantly, but then he presses his mouth against her clit through her underwear and every thought she previously had vacates her. 

He's gotten better at this too. At first he was eager but clumsy, and she had to direct him, guide him through the right moves and the no-gos. There was something pleasant at hearing all this filth said out loud and at plunging her hands in his curls to angle his tongue – besides, he's always been an eager student, and he learnt quickly and well, completely unashamed. 

But there is something to be said about this too, the way he doesn't even bother to remove her underwear, just pushes them to the side and presses his tongue inside her, his arms braced around her thighs. she shudders and he chuckles, a low sound that ripples through her. She laughs. She likes sex with him – it's just the right side of feral, with a dash of laughter and sprinkled with wildness. 

It doesn't take long for her orgasm to rock her, and she rides the wave easily, elbows shaking slightly where they're pressed on the counter, her head thrown back. He licks her juices eagerly – it's probably already on the side of overstimulation, but it feels so good. He blows a teasing breath on the tender skin. She shivers again. 

She hauls him up so he's standing between her thighs and bends to kiss him, thorough and lazy. "I'm going to miss this," she says. 

They've known each other for long enough that he doesn't have to check what she means. "Me too," he mumbles against her cheek. She notices absently that's he's half-hard, but doesn't offer to take care of it. 

They stay like that a few minutes that effectively kill his erection, and she feels mildly bad, but it's probably better that she doesn't send him back to his bandmates dirty and smelling of sex. They hate her enough as it is. 

"Well," she says as she half-straightens, feeling lazy and contented, "shoo now, child."

He laughs warmly in her neck, sucks a quick bruise there, and leaves. 

She watches the door swing shut soundlessly and closes her eyes, determined not to wait for him. He walks away at a brisk pace and doesn't look back. 

_He'll be back ___, she thinks sleepily as she slips between the sheets and drifts back to sleep, and then, _we don't work together_ , but she's already asleep.


End file.
